WSJ: Burgerville’s Health-Care Recipe
A great article in today’s Wall Street Journal, written by Sarah Needleman, featuring client Burgerville and their affordable employee health care program.
If you don’t believe that a fast food, quick serve or fast casual restaurant chain can provide their employees with affordable health care, you will be pleasantly surprised!
From the Wall Street Journal:
Four years ago, executives of Burgerville, a regional restaurant chain, agreed to pay at least 90% of health-care premiums for hourly employees who work at least 20 hours a week. Today, the executives say the unusual move has saved money by cutting turnover, boosting sales and improving productivity.
Burgerville’s experience is notable for the food-service industry, where turnover is high and fewer than half of chains offer health insurance for part-time hourly employees, according to People Report, a research firm. The chains that do offer benefits pay on average 49% of the cost for employees working at least 30 hours a week, People Report says.
Burgerville’s initiative “not only improves quality of service but it saves money by not having to replace staff as frequently,” said Darren Tristano, executive vice president at Technomic Inc., a Chicago consulting and research firm for the food industry.
Burgerville, a 39-restaurant chain based in Vancouver, Wash., and owned by closely held Holland Inc., has long followed a distinctive path. It offers hormone-free meat, uses wind energy to power its stores and prints nutritional information on its receipts.
Under Burgerville’s plan, individual hourly workers can enroll in a health-maintenance organization for $15 a month, with no deductible. A worker and spouse pay $30 monthly; family plans cost $90. Salaried employees, whose plans didn’t change significantly, pay $84 a month for individual and $240 monthly for family coverage, and have an annual deductible of $500.
Executives say the plan paid for itself, and more. Turnover in 2006 plunged to 54%, from 128% in 2005. That’s a big deal when it costs an average of $1,700 to replace and train a restaurant worker, according to People Report.
Tags: Affordable Health Care, Affordable Healthcare, Burger King, Burgerville, Casey Anthony, Caylee Anthony, Darren Tristano, Economy, Fast Food, Health care, Healthcare, Kaiser, Kaiser Permanente, Kentucky Fried Chicken, KFC, McDonald's, Northwest, Oregon, Pacific Northwest, People Report, Politics, Portland, Quick Serve, Quick Service, Recession, Sarah Needleman, Sustainability, Sustainable Business, Sustainable Practices, Technomic, The Holland, Vancouver, Wall Street Journal, WSJ
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August 31, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Starbucks also does this. The employees that work at least 20 hours a week have this benefit, it is great for college students. Another little known fact Starbucks pays more for employee health care then they do for coffee beans!